What keeps the present Indian cricket team ahead of other nations is their unpredictability to keep experimenting with players so that the opposition is left thinking all the time.
“If you go out to play against India you know that there’s going to be one pattern that’s going to be followed. So people can prepare. Once we start playing like this (experimenting with a few guys going up and down the order) and get more confident with the roles that we’re given then we can be more unpredictable,” said Indian captain Virat Kohli after his team had completed a 5-0 whitewash of the one-day international series against Sri Lanka at the R Premadasa Stadium on Sunday.
“With the kind of talent that we have in the side if we can be unpredictable as well then it becomes a lethal combination. Teams will find it difficult to set a pattern against us and we’ll always stay ahead of the game or at least try to, and more often than not we’ll end up executing those things.
“But it’s important to embrace that change and the guys have done it. Some guys will perform and some guys won’t - that goes in limited-overs cricket and it’s not an alarming thing for us, we’ll keep doing these things in the future as well before we reach the World Cup,” he said.
When asked the difference between the two sides Kohli replied, “We didn’t analyse the opposition at any stage in this series, we only wanted to focus on our strengths and make sure we keep repeating those things out in the middle. That way the opposition is not something that you need to focus on. We just wanted to execute the plans we made for ourselves as a team regardless of the opposition.
“It didn’t matter to us whether we were playing Sri Lanka or we’re going to play Australia back home. For us it was focusing on our team. We didn’t sit and think what the difference between the two sides. If you have an opportunity to win international games you’re going to pounce on those opportunities and win, and perform as well. So that’s exactly what we did and we never thought at any stage that this is the difference between the two sides or we didn’t analyse anything. We were just looking for improvements on our side of things.”
Kohli said that Jasprit Bumrah who was named the man of the series has been India’s most effective short-format owler in the last 18 months.
“He has really worked on his bowling a lot, especially his length ball has picked up more pace. That’s very heartening to see because it never lets the batsmen get settled. It’s not only about yorkers and slower balls any more. He can bowl a good length ball and nick you off as well, which I think is the biggest improvement in his bowling. Credit to him for shaping his game in that way,” said Kohli. “Getting a man of the series award in the subcontinent as a fast bowler, it’s always a great thing to achieve. He bowled in really good areas and he deserves to be the man of the series. I hope he can continue the same way against Australia.”
India next series after the Sri Lanka tour is at home against Australia where they play a series of 5 ODIs and 3 T20Is.
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